New Licensing Model

For Unified CM, this licensing model is only applicable in deployments where the First Node in the cluster is deployed as Virtual Machine. If the Publisher is an MCS server, the MAC address of the NIC is used as the licensing key.

In this licensing model for virtualized deployments, the MAC address of the NIC card is not used and is not relevant in any way to the licensing of the application. Instead, you must use the License MAC which is a 12-digit HEX value based on the parameters defined below.

License MAC Generation

Several Cisco Unified Communications applications use a different license enforcement mechanism when on VMware vs. when on non-virtualized servers such as MCS 7800. These applications enforce licensing via a software-generated "License MAC" instead of the "burned-in" MAC address on the physical server's NIC.

For applications that require a License MAC, it can be created using the Answer File Generator prior to application installation in the Virtual Machine. This will output both the License MAC value as well as the answer file for unattended installation. This method is recommended as the most effective way to obtain the license MAC.

A License MAC is in the same format as a physical MAC address, i.e. a 12 digit hexadecimal value, but it is generated by hashing the following user-configured parameters:

To view the current value of a License MAC for applications that require it, after installation select Show > System in the Cisco Unified Operating System Administration web page or run the CLI command "show status".

Once you change any parameter which creates the License MAC, you have a 30-day grace period to use the license.

You can change the settings back, and your license will be valid again.

You can request a re-host of the license during this grace period.

If you need more than a 30-day grace period, change the fields listed above back to their original values and then change them to the new values again and you will get 30 more days.

You will see the number of remaining grace period days on the splash screen each time you log into the system.

Expired Licenses

If you allow the license to expire, then the following conditions apply:

The Unified CM service will shutdown!

Unified Communications applications do not wait for a system reboot or for any other event.

No other event or service is shutdown or disabled.

All licenses are permanently deleted.

The system will not process calls again until new licenses are uploaded.